Douglas Todd: Bringing over patriarchal attitudes

Patriarchal attitudes in foreign countries can wreak havoc when transferred to Canada, where most immigrant women — such as those who may be from Saudi Arabia — at least have more rights than in their home country, including to phone 911 during a spousal dispute.

Photograph by: HASSAN AMMAR
, AFP/Getty Images

Pakistan’s Malala Yousafzai has become the poster teenager for international women’s equality.

Shot in the head by a Muslim extremist for advocating greater educational opportunities for females, a Western media campaign arose to nominate Yousafzai for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

The Pakistani teenager’s autobiography, I Am Malala, has catapulted her into a global symbol against female oppression. People in the West hope her suffering will improve conditions for women in Pakistan and throughout other developing nations.

It’s no accident the outrage against Yousafzai occurred in Pakistan. The Global Gender Gap Index ranked Pakistan a dismal 132nd out of 135 countries for the way it treats females. Neighbouring India doesn’t do much better.

It’s worth exploring what Yousafzai’s plight might suggest about gender conditions for those seemingly far removed from Pakistan and India — the women of North America.

In this era of mass migration, one of five residents of Canada is now born outside the country, mostly in Asia. The ratio of foreign-born residents rises to almost one in two in Toronto and Metro Vancouver.

Pakistan has become Canada’s fifth leading source of new immigrants. China, the Philippines and India remain the three largest immigrant-providing countries. The U.S. is fourth.

Unfortunately, the record of many Asian countries in regards to male domination and women’s freedom leaves much to be desired.

Metro Vancouver’s Farida Bano Ali works with women who are victims of domestic violence and abuse.

Born in Fiji, she has seen first-hand how patriarchal attitudes in foreign countries can wreak havoc when transferred to Canada, where most immigrant women at least have more rights than in their home country — including to phone 911 during a spousal dispute.

Along with other visible-minority women, Ali last year organized a major conference to educate ethnic community members about the scourge of domestic violence, which infiltrates all cultures, and the need to respect women’s rights. “It was like opening a can of worms. Some people told us not to do it,” she said.

Ali, a leader within B.C.’s Muslim community, says it is not necessarily the original teachings of Islam or other religions that leads to females being treated unjustly in Canada. She claims Mohammed was pro-women’s equality.

Blame should instead go to oppressive “cultural” customs in certain countries, said Ali, who declined to name such nations because she didn’t want to “end up on the hot spot.”

So far, pollsters have not measured what values new immigrants bring to Canada about male authority or female rights. But researchers have assessed attitudes toward women and men in the countries that are Canada’s five leading sources of immigrants.

In addition to ranking Pakistan as 132nd on women’s rights, the Global Gender Gap Index (conducted by the World Economic Forum) rated China as a middle-of-the-road 69th and India as a laggard 105th. Surprisingly, to some, the Philippines came in eighth.

The Global Gender Gap Index measures whether men and women have equal access to health, education, politics and economic opportunities. The U.S. came in 22nd and Canada 21st.

Pollsters have found additional ways to assess the way girls and women are treated around the world.

A key way to test for patri­archal attitudes is to ask people if they agree with the statement: “A wife must always obey her husband.”

That’s the question the Pew Research Center posed. In Pakistan, which is virtually entirely Muslim, almost nine out of 10 agreed that wives should obey their husbands. So did the same proportion of all residents in India.

In the Philippines, almost six out of 10 agreed; suggesting that, despite the Philippines’ high ranking by the Global Gender Gap Index, domestic authority in that Roman Catholic nation still tends to go to males.

In the U.S., less than three in 10 agreed wives must obey husbands. Pew researchers did not ask the question of Canadians, but other polls suggest Canadians would respond similar to Americans.

Two more research questions by Pew strongly suggest patriarchal beliefs continue to prevail in China, the Philippines, India and Pakistan.

People in these countries were asked “when jobs are scarce, (should) men have more right to a job than women?” More than 82 per cent of Indians and Pakistanis said “yes,” followed by 76 per cent of Filipinos, 73 per cent of mainland Chinese and just 14 per cent of Americans.

A similar response came in regards to women’s education; the issue that led to Yousafzai being shot by a Pakistani extremist. Asked their views on the proposition that “university degrees are more important for boys than girls,” more than half of the surveyed Pakistanis, Indians and Chinese agreed. In the U.S. only 15 per cent concurred.

What do such polls on men and women’s relative power suggest for a city such as Metro Vancouver?

A new book by Oxford economist Paul Collier points to an answer.

Exodus: How Migration is Changing Our World (University of Oxford Press) is being highly praised, by both conservatives and liberals, for the thoughtful approach it takes to the polarizing issue of immigration.

Even while the author focuses on the economics of migration, Collier maintains most people leave their homelands because their countries have become “dysfunctional” — with poor standards of living and weak protection of individual rights.

The big danger for the host country, Collier maintains, comes when in-migration grows from a small stream into a wide river.

In the face of mass migration, Collier cities studies showing immigrants tend to form into enclaves and are less likely to become integrated into the host culture.

Such ethnic enclaves have already formed in Metro Vancouver, where more than 170,000 residents were born in Mainland China, 114,000 in India and 94,000 in the Philippines.

Collier’s book, endorsed by the noted Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam, reveals that mass immigration leads to immigrants bringing their homeland’s “dysfunctional” social practices to their new land.

He maintains that’s especially true in economics; but may also be the case in regards to convictions about male authority.

Even though Metro Van­couver’s Ali would not name the countries of immigrants who tend to have patriarchal beliefs, she acknowledged Canada sometimes imports social problems regarding gender. “Many women and men come to Canada with baggage (such as beliefs men should have absolute control in the home). But they have to know when they come here they must follow the law of the land.”

What’s to be done? Given the “dysfunctional” track record that many immigrant source countries have on economics and women’s rights, Collier maturely maintains it’s not good enough for residents of the West to respond by just repeating the “well-intentioned mantra of the need to ‘have respect for other cultures.’”

More thorough polling needs to be conducted into the values that all Canadians, homegrown and new, hold about women’s equality. That will give reformers like Ali more ammunition to strive for greater respect between the genders.

Until then, we are left to remain vigilant against not only the egregious kinds of mistreatment suffered by females like Malala Yousafzai, but the quieter injustices endured by countless girls and women everywhere.

Patriarchal attitudes in foreign countries can wreak havoc when transferred to Canada, where most immigrant women — such as those who may be from Saudi Arabia — at least have more rights than in their home country, including to phone 911 during a spousal dispute.

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